497 The Start Of A Bizzare Adventure

Nothing from Baiyi's pool of encyclopedic knowledge could provide an explanation for what had just happened. Baiyi racked his brain, but he did not come up with anything. He could only stand stiffly in the middle of the busy street, like a fish out of water. After some time had passed, Baiyi's arms began to feel the weight of the unconscious Mia, so he tightened his arms even more.

Baiyi looked around again, trying to make sense of his strange surroundings. His gaze shifted from the archaic stone buildings to the passers-by wearing long robes, and then back to the banners. He reread the text that had been written in the overly-complicated Formation Script, and the thought that he had somehow traveled six thousand years into the past, to the Ancient Rohserlian Empire, surfaced in his mind. [1]

No. A more reasonable explanation would be he somehow has become trapped in a mysterious illusory world — one he might escape if he pinched his thighs really hard[2]. He could not do this, however, because he was carrying Mia, so he made do by pinching her thighs, which were covered by silk socks, instead.

'Alright. That's the unmistakable texture of her tender, supple skin,' Baiyi concluded. 'Illusions should not have that level of tactile accuracy, can they?'

With the unfathomably powerful psychic energy and consciousness that Baiyi had, the number of illusionists that could trick him was zero.

Unfortunately, that left him with a mindblowing conclusion: he had somehow gone back in time!

Baiyi shook his head in disbelief. As a scholar that was conversant with every proven magical theory and principle, he knew that a trip back to the past would cause a time paradox, a phenomenon that defied logic. This was the reason why no learned individuals would entertain such an outlandish idea. Time travel was, at best, an entertaining fantasy for an idle mind. How else could Baiyi explain his current predicament, though?

His mind was filled with a lot of knots, and he had no idea how to unbind them; thus, he decided to contact the other Voidwalkers. Right when Baiyi was about to delve deep into his mind, a passer-by took notice of him and walked over. "Greetings, stranger! Why are you wearing armor during a festival?"

Baiyi turned around and saw the speaker — a young man in his twenties, who wore a one-piece robe that looked vaguely similar to the robes worn by modern-day sorcerers. The young man had spoken in a language that Biayi understood but had not used in a long time: Ancient Rohlserlese.

Baiyi quickly cast a voicebox spell over his current armor and replied in Ancient Rohlserlese, "I'm a traveler. It appears that I'm lost, though. Do you know this place?"

"You're at Aegir, good sir, and we're— Hold on; what's with the girl in your arms!?" The young man's voice suddenly rose. "Why is she wearing something like that? Is she… Is she a serf?"

The young man gawked, and his face turned red as he prepared to shout.

Before he could, however, Baiyi knocked him out with a well-timed Hypnosis. The young man fell into it, and his mind could not put up a fight. His pupils dilated before turning glassy, and his arms fell to his sides as though he were a doll.

"Take me somewhere private," Baiyi commanded the young man in Ancient Rohlserlese. He then glanced at the unconscious Mia and muttered, 'You and your sense of fashion! You almost got us into a mess!'

The young man nodded and replied flatly, "My house is right around the corner."

With Mia in his arms, Baiyi followed him. The young man lived in a cottage fit for commoners. The furniture in the house possessed strong Ancient Rohlserlian aesthetics. The furniture greatly resembled those that Baiyi had seen in the Archmage's memories; this corroborated his time-travel theory.

Baiyi wrapped Little Mia with a blanket he found on the young man's bed, after which he turned to the young man, whose eyes were still glassy. "Tell me today's date."

"Year thirty-one after the New Reign," replied the young man.

Ancient Rohlserlians — whose civilization was formed at the early age of human history, therefore displaying a lack of awareness in preserving historical accounts accurately — followed a calendar system that was cumbersome enough to make a historian break down. Every time a new emperor ascended the throne, the calendar would be reset back to 'Year 1'. Hence, according to the young man, the current emperor had been ruling the empire for thirty-one years. However, in the grand scheme of anthropological history, there was no way of telling what year they were in, or how far in the past the current year was from the one Baiyi had left.

"Who's the current emperor?" Baiyi continued.

"The wisest, most righteous, and greatest emperor of all: His Majesty, Emperor Rohlserl the Nineteenth!" The young man answered with veneration. Although he was under the influence of Baiyi's spell, his blank eyes brightened with reverence as he spoke. At that moment, the young man did not sound like someone that had been hypnotized; he sounded proud.

It was obvious that his reverence for the current Emperor could not be understated.

"The Nineteenth?!" Baiyi asked with a trace of amusement. This was the only Rohlserlian emperor that he was acquainted with! He was the legendary Sage-Emperor of the Magi, the First Voidwalker, Type-Moon's oldest fanboy, the students' favorite lecturer, the girls' Royal Gramps, and Baiyi's master.

From this, Baiyi realized that he had not just traveled back in time; he had returned to an age when his master was at his prime!

Recent events were so hilarious and ridiculous, Baiyi had the urge to select a Voidwalker at random and share his cheesiest hot-take with them. He was about to do this when he discovered something strange; although the Voidwalkers were still in the Void, they appeared to be unmoving.

He could barely feel their presence, and they were not moving at all; it was as though they had become statues. In truth, however, their movement had become so slow, it appeared as though they were not moving at all.

To test his theory, Baiyi poked the Warrior Walker with his consciousness. He expected her to instantly react with a flirtatious "Hmph!", but her real reaction was so slow, he did not notice it immediately. It was as though the other Voidwalkers were in super slow motion. Baiyi suspected that it might even take a few hours to get the Warrior Walker's reaction.

This was a very unsettling conclusion. He figured that the flow of time must be different on his side. Time had to be going much faster for him.

"Crap. This is really bad," muttered a frantic Baiyi. His gaze shifted to the armor that he had on. Was it the cause of all this?

Things were finally coming together. This explained why Mystique left behind so many strange but distinct legends at various times and places. No wonder it had a Formation Script on its surface, despite looking new for something that was six thousand years old. This should also be the reason why Baiyi could sense a faint tint of Laws within it. He had tried and tried to locate the source of this tint, but he had been unable to find it in the armor.

This was because Mystique's Law Effect could make time go haywire.

As an exemplary scholar that did not believe in time being multidirectional, Baiyi was oblivious to the possibility of time manipulation. At that moment, however, the armor's mysteries seemed to converge at that possibility.

"Okay, you know what? I'll probably be better off considering this whole thing as a case of time travel. Illusion and parallel dimension be damned," Baiyi said.

He did not think that he would ever get to experience the life of an ancient Rohlserlian. As he entertained myriad thoughts, Baiyi realized that his knowledge of the future, his current power, and his connection with the current Emperor would allow him to live like a god among men in this civilization. He would be one of those at the top of the hierarchy in this ancient society, and that would allow him to own a harem of bodacious women and flirt every little girl with a pulse, during which time his lapdogs would surround and lick his booths whenever he pleased. That would be a life worth living, right?

'Hell no. You think I wanna do all that when the things I still have to do in my time are piling up? Oh, and beautiful women? You mean I don't have a plethora of them already? Aren't they all worried sick, waiting for me to come home? The Church is busy crying to its Angels right that instant, begging them to destroy me and my hood. Who the hell will have the time to fulfill their fantasies in this medieval time, huh? Ain't nobody got time for that!'

'But how the hell am I supposed to go home?!' Baiyi wondered, feeling lonely and helpless. He was a scholar that had dismissed the notion of time travel, so he had no way of retracing his steps. Despite trying to come up with a solution, he could only grasp as straws as his panic increased.

"Okay, maybe the only thing I can do right now is to seek help from my master of this time. The current emperor had only just ascended the throne, so he had to be pretty young and powerful, right? He should not resemble, in any way, that weird and unreliable geezer that I know, right?" Baiyi murmured.

He wondered what he could do to prove to the current Emperor, the Nineteenth, that they knew each other, albeit in the future. Only then could he convince the Emperor to get him out of this dump.

Baiyi knew that the Sage-Emperor of this time was nothing like the kindly old man that had taught him without reservation. The Sage-Emperor of this time should be an imposing, powerful, and no-nonsense ruler, who had very little compassion and patience.

To him, Baiyi would be a stranger from god-knows-where. Baiyi would be unable to explain how he was able to function with a body that was just an armor set; after all, in this time, Soul Armature arts had not yet been invented.

Something else deeply disturbed Baiyi: the butterfly effect. He imagined telling the current emperor that he would end up a funny old man living in the Void. If the emperor believed him and did everything he could to never go to the Void, future Baiyi would not meet him when he is suddenly transported from Earth to this universe. Future Baiyi would never have become a Voidwalker.

This would cause even more to happen. There would be no Mia, no Tisdale, and no Attie. The Voidwalkers would not exist because their souls would perish in the Void without Baiyi's protection. Everything he had lived for would be gone!

The butterfly effect was scarily precisely, and no one could explain how so much of the future could be changed because of one wrong mood. Baiyi felt cold when he thought of his, and suddenly, that idea of visiting the current emperor began to seem like a terrible one.

Should he just bring Little Mia to a quiet village and stay there while he worked on a plan to return to his time? That would be a good time for the two to bond — something Baiyi could never get enough of.

How long would it take him to come up with a solution alone, though? A hundred years? A thousand years? What would happen in his reality if he was gone for that long? He had left behind a world that was facing the looming threat of the Church and its Angels. Even though time flowed much slower there, every second that passed was still a second lost. What if he returns home to find Da Xue in ruins — destroyed by the angels? What if he realized that the Voidwalkers had been banished to the Void and that his beautiful girls had all been imprisoned? What a nightmare that would be!

The invincible Fifth Walker was now being overrun by fear. The worst part was that he did not know how to get out of this mess!

As anxiety plagued Baiyi, a loud knock on the cottage's door caused him to jerk. Before he could do more than that, the door was struck hard enough to generate a loud bang. It was thought it was being kicked open.

A voice that was pleasant as that if an angel called out, "Big Brother Nick, I have just made more pies! I've saved some for ya, too. Are you in your room? 'Cause I'm coming in!"

Without waiting for an answer, the speaker waltzed right through the living room and into the bedroom, where she found herself staring at a creepy suit of armor, an unconscious girl on the bed, and the young man she had been speaking to, who was as stiff as mannequin as he stood beside the stranger.

Baiyi was about to cast a Hypnosis spell right at her, but his hands stopped. The moment he saw the speaker's face, he had quickly held back his manner.